


pretty sleeper

by khalasaar



Series: ms believer [1]
Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Angst, Angst angst angst angst, F/F, F/M, I've literally never written something like this so, LOL THAT SOUNDS SO BAD, a bit?, also i love pain and suffering!, at least sorta kinda lucas?, chanting, help o god, his body?, posting it feels like shooting myself in the foot tbqh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-09 00:13:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5518283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khalasaar/pseuds/khalasaar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>concept: me, walking around in your dreams. and your nightmares, too.</p><p>(riley's version)</p>
            </blockquote>





	pretty sleeper

Riley’s nails are bright pink, short-clipped, glinting in the dim light as she draws a line over Maya’s bare stomach.

 

“What are you thinking about?” she asks.

 

“You,” Maya says. Her eyes are on Riley’s hands as they drift, slow and almost lazy, sketching swirls across her summer-darkened skin. Around them, the room is quiet except for cicadas screaming outside, the humming of the old lamp above their heads. It’s just the two of them - backlit, Riley sitting on Maya’s hips and falling into her headfirst. Maya’s eyelashes flutter. “Always.”

 

Riley smiles faintly, drags a finger down her side, from rib to hip.

 

“And you?”

 

“You,” Riley agrees, almost sadly. “Always.”

***

 

Unfortunately, this is a dream.

 

***

One of the dreams she likes, of course.

 

Real life, not so much. Real life is not so forgiving. Real life goes like this: Riley wakes up every day from dreams like these, and she is so in love with Maya it hurts, and she is never going to say a god damn thing about it. 

 

There is also starting to be something knotted and heavy in her chest. A hopeless, uncomfortable ache. Like the one they always describe in depression pamphlets.

 

It’s fine, she thinks. Riley is still, mostly, able to smile. So she ignores it. 

 

***

In ninth grade, her whole life starts to look like this blurry, vaguely Maya-shaped shell.

 

“What did you dream about last night?”

 

She looks up, startled.

 

“You look exhausted,” Maya adds, pouting in sympathy. She’s stretched out across Riley’s couch, one foot hanging off the side and swinging absently, eyebrows raised in concern. It takes Riley a long time to bring her face into focus. “You had a bad dream?”

 

“Yeah,” Riley says, meaning _no,_ “it was pretty bad,” meaning _God, I wish real life was more like that,_ meaning _you loved me back, and goddamn, Maya, everything was just perfect._ “Lots of spiders.” Meaning: _So many people came to our wedding._ “I couldn’t leave.” Meaning: _Everyone saw it coming._

 

“Oh.” Maya sits up. Concern is in her eyes, and she laces their fingers together slowly, deliberately, full of the kind of love Riley doesn’t need. In the afternoon light she seems vaguely made up. “I’m sorry.”

 

Riley looks down at their hands. 

 

“It’s fine,” she says, smiling faintly, swallowing. Meaning, obviously: _it’s just not._

 

***

 

On a Monday night, Riley gets upgraded to nightmares.

 

There’s a dog across the patio. They’re in Greece, probably, in a vacation house. It looks like a building from Santorini: huge and white, all curved, and Riley and the dog are on the roof, sort of - a square space, brick-floored, ten yards above the ground. A breeze murmurs across the property, just barely. The sky is bright blue and cloudless where she can see it through the branches of an overgrown spruce tree on the right; there’s an S-shaped pool in the yard below, rippling slightly, surrounded by perfectly manicured grass and a fence of palm trees. Riley realizes she’s sitting on a lawn chair, near the edge of the patio, and that she’s dripping something thin and golden off every inch of her skin, something that puddles around her bare feet and in the cracks of the floor, glimmering slightly when the sun hits it.

 

The dog tilts its head. It’s brindled, pretty big, with dark brown eyes and slobbery jowls like a St. Bernard. Much more sleek than that, but still well-muscled. Sinew piled up like a mountainscape under its dark skin. The house is deathly quiet. Riley gets the very distinct feeling that this whole town is empty.

 

The wind ceases.

 

The dog growls, tongue lolling out of its mouth in a pant, and Riley can smell its breath from across the room.

 

“Just kill me already,” she says, annoyed, “and I can wake up. Okay?”

 

It regards her for a second, as if considering. Saliva drips down around its feet from its open mouth. 

 

Then it turns and disappears around a corner. 

 

She springs up after it. The two of them go flying down a set of open-air stairs to the glimmering pool and the dead grass, the steps flanked by poinsettias, the sun so bright Riley has to wave it out of her face like a bug. The dog’s claws make a clicking sound even in the dirt. She follows it around the edge of the pool, wondering how it leaves footprints in such dry soil, and finally it draws to a pause after they make a full loop. When Riley looks up, Maya and Lucas are standing in front of her.

 

“What are you doing here?” Maya blinks at her, silent. Her hair is curled down to her waist and dripping wet, her eyes dark even in the sunlight, her face completely blank. Lucas is wearing the same indeterminable expression. 

 

The dog is circling around their feet, placid.

 

“Hello?” 

 

Maya turns to look at Lucas, lightning fast, and whispers something in his ear. Lucas does nothing, but the dog reacts instantly: its gaze sharpening, ears perking, eyes zeroing in on Riley. It pauses at Maya’s feet, calculating. Then moves forward.

“What are you doing?” 

 

The dog snarls.

 

“What did you say to it?” Riley backs up, and it follows, slow and steady. Ripping up grass with its claws. Vibrating all over.

 

“Maya-“ The growling crescendoes to a bark, and fear strikes Riley’s heart - her feet catch on the edge of the pool and she stumbles, feeling the water splash up over her ankle, hauntingly aware of Maya’s eyes watching her every move. “Maya, I-“

 

“Sorry,” the dog says, in a human voice - in Maya’s voice, almost. And it pauses for half a second, giving Riley time to cry out, before it leaps forward with an impossible strength, apologizing again in Maya’s voice, and pushes her into the water, claws snagged in her shirt, its whole body thrashing with a snarl that pulls all the breath out of Riley’s lungs, and Riley wakes up and is never a dog person again.

 

***

 

“Riley, are you okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Riley answers, absent. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

 

She woke up this morning with circles so dark they look like black holes. Her excuse is an understatement.

 

“You’re not yourself.” Maya’s lips are set in a frown. “What’s wrong?”

 

“I’m tired.” 

 

“Besides that.”

 

“Nothing.”

 

“Don’t lie to me, Riles.”

 

“You wouldn’t understand.”

 

“Try me.”

 

That long pause, fragile, tenuous. 

 

“I’m so tired,” Riley says, softly. Tears brim in her eyes. “Maya, I’m exhausted.”

 

Maya’s features fall into place - concern, sympathy, sadness. She holds out both arms. “Come here.”

 

Her offer hurts more than it helps, but Riley takes it.

 

***

 

She falls into her dream, the one with the dog again. Right next to her this time. Staring out at the pool as she faces the other way.

 

“Hey, you,” she says. It doesn’t move. Under its black-and-brown fur she can see its lungs inhaling-exhaling, slowly, its expression calm and body perfectly still. She leans over and rests her forehead on its shoulder. The sun beating down on the back of her neck, its fur smelling warm and strangely real. 

 

“We’re done being enemies now, huh? I don’t really know what you tried to teach me last time.”

 

The dog does nothing. Riley sighs. 

 

“I am so ready to die,” she says. The words sharp in her chest. “And you’re not going to help me out, are you?”

 

It starts to pant, looking down at the pool. Riley squints: at the bottom of the six-foot end is a vaguely human-shaped hole, dark and glimmering, cut out to Riley’s size.

 

The dog looks at it, at her. Then says in Maya’s voice - “You dug it yourself.”

 

Oh.

 

Riley is exhausted to the bone. 

 

“I get it,” she says, climbing to her feet. The sun is still shining, and the grave is pulling her in like a magnet. “I don’t need your help anyway.”

 

***

 

“Depression,” the doctor announces, scribbling something on her clipboard. “Could be seasonal affective. But manic, more likely.”

 

Riley snaps to attention.

 

“It’s winter?” she asks, surprised.

 

Maya looks like she’s about to cry.

 

“Is she grieving?”

 

“No,” Maya snaps. Her face is bright with anger, body stiff, hands curled into fists at her side. “I don’t think so. She won’t tell me.”

 

“It’s a possibility. I’ll give you the number of a few therapists, see what they can do, if they think medication is a good idea.”

“Thank you,” Topanga says. Riley tries to look at her, but her vision is swimming. She reaches out, to grab Maya’s hand - and for this one brief second, her heart starts to work again. But then Maya’s phone lights up with Lucas’ number, vibrating, a heart next to his name, and Riley drops it, and the whole thing starts all fucking over again.

 

***

 

Riley is flat on her back. The dog is sitting on her chest, heavier than it looks, paws resting against her neck. Looking down at her, as impenetrable as ever.

 

“I hate you,” she says, feeling strangely peaceful. The dog blinks. Above her, its head eclipses part of the sun, outlined in pouring gold, backlit. She strokes a hand down its chest. The fur is soft, and its breathing measured. Blood is oozing, slowly, slowly, out of the puncture wounds in her chest. Claw marks. But accidental.

 

“I know I’m stupid,” she continues. “But you’re not making it any easier.”

 

She tilts her head backward, off the edge of the patio. Birds chirping. The hole in the pool, tantalizingly empty.

 

***

 

“I keep having these dreams about you.”

 

Maya stares at her, stunned. She’s been over for hours, and these are the first words Riley’s said: hoarse, calm, detached.

 

“You’re a dog,” Riley continues. “Brindle. I’ve had it three times and it gets closer every time it happens. It talks in your voice. It killed me the first time. And after that I just kept killing myself. Don’t worry,” she adds, seeing the stricken look on Maya’s face.

 

“I love you,” Maya says softly.

 

“Maya, I am so far gone,” Riley says, her voice breaking, and Maya’s hands are shaking when she leans over and pulls Riley into a hug so tight and so urgent it hurts. Her whole body is radiating a feverish warmth, and Riley suffocates in her hair as Maya sobs into her shoulder, saying “I love you”, saying “me too”, saying - when she pulls away, jaw set and face flushed, “We can come back together.”

 

Riley swallows: “I don’t know if I can,” she responds, helpless, and Maya just says, “Do it for me.”

 

So of course she does.

 

***

 

It takes so long. God, it takes so long.

 

But she does it.

 

For Maya. With Maya. Six months later, a song comes on in their car that Riley used to love and she starts to sing along like she hasn’t in forever, and it’s just such a _moment_ that Maya bursts out laughing, practically exploding with happiness, so hard that they have to pull the truck over. It’s always hard. It always will be. But something is working again that didn’t used to.

 

At least, it does for a while.

 

On a Friday in eleventh grade, Maya gets drunk and kisses her, and for a moment ,Riley feels the flight of hope in her chest - but Maya leans back, laughs it off, and says she got a head start on the phase that’s supposed to happen in college.

 

And that’s all she says.

 

And oh, man. That fucking burns.

 

She leaves. Instantly. Maya is crossfaded and whines as she crawls out the window, but Riley pays no attention. She leaves and leaves and leaves. It feels like something coming out of a crawlspace coming out of a crawlspace, coming out of Riley, blowing out the door. Her vision is swimming with so many tears she trips three times on the way home. Maya calls her and calls her and she doesn’t pick up.

 

Fucking unbelievable. Her apartment is empty. It’s ninth grade all over again. It hurts worse this time, she thinks, slamming the door shut behind her, because it was so much closer.

 

Maya said _I love you on_ the way out. High as shit but really meaning it. Riley could see it in her eyes.

 

So maybe tomorrow will be better. Maybe. If she gets one. 

 

***

 

Three sleeping pills but it’s only dusk. Even though it was 1 AM when she came home. Somehow, this dream is clearer than all the others, even through the medicine that’s supposed to blunt her nightmares.

 

The Greek house, sunset, colder than last time, all the white walls cut with dark shadows and fading yellow light. The wind existing, but barely. Riley's hair is wet and starchy when she runs a hand through it, and everything is the same as it was two years ago, the drying grass, the pool, the brick floors. The same shivering sequoia on the right. No dog. 

 

She gets up and pads down the stairs, barefoot, the poinsettias still in bloom. In the yard, there’s still no dog. The whole world is silent. There are no other houses, she realizes, outside her vine-draped fence. 

 

Unperturbed, she opens the sliding door for the first time. Inside is a long dining table, couches lined with swirls of patterned blankets, a TV that won’t turn on. The floorboards creak no matter where she steps. She continues through an empty kitchen and three doors to the hallway, where there’s a spiral staircase and a glass-walled garden. There are bedrooms and bathrooms on the right, too many to count, but Riley isn’t really interested. 

 

Instead, she opens the front door. Outside: a dirty driveway, a swatch of grass, the chain-link fence. It’s getting colder by the second.

 

The dog is waiting for her. Sitting still. Its mouth closed for once. Eyes glinting.

 

She steps toward it, runs her fingers along the top of its head, but it darts away toward the opening on the driveway, and she follows. 

 

On the other side of the fence: Maya and Lucas, hand in hand.

 

There is no gate.

 

Riley looks at the dog, and something in her chest snaps into place.

 

“I fucking knew it,” she says.

 

It shrugs. Maya looks over at her, confused, concerned, then at Lucas, who has the same perplexed expression. Riley drops to her knees and stares the dog right in the face, an uncontrollable anger vibrating in her fingertips.

 

“I knew it,” Riley repeats, giggling hysterically, and then the dog tilts its head and apologizes, in that strange, sad voice that Riley only now realizes is her own, before it lunges, and she lets it.

 

***

 

Afterwards, there is no waking up.

**Author's Note:**

> lol everything sad in this fandom is from maya's perspective so I'm mixing it up I guess? or trying to. I know Riley is usually seen as very bubbly/happy/untouchable but she's also sensitive and depression is a theme I'm wishing the show could cover, so, idk, it seems more complex on her than it would on Maya to me
> 
> I never do stuff like this so I'm a lil nervous abt posting it but pushing my boundaries yanno?
> 
> feedback appreciated!
> 
> ALSO, LISTEN: if y'all want me to write something specific (or make a friend, or cry about rilaya, or maybe yell at me for breaking your heart) send me a message @ philtaatos.tumblr.com with requests/prompts/whatever you'd like!! I'd totally love it


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